Muscles make music for Old Spice

A while ago we brought you ‘Smell is Power’ from Old Spice and talked about how P&G had cleverly ambushed their own marketing (with help from W+K). This time round the campaign has gone truly interactive and lets you use Terry Cruise’s muscles to make music. Enjoy.

(HT @tbuesing & Adverblog)

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Shake dat ass!

I’m here in San Francisco for GDC ’12. Yesterday was the Independent Games Summit – lots of really interesting and inspirational talks by some of the big figures and innovators in indie games.

The clear highlight so far has to be a game called ‘Dog The Wag’ – an ingenious invention by Douglas Wilson of Die Gute Fabrik, the creator of Johann Sebastian Joust. It pretty much involves tying a PlayStation Move controller to your butt, getting down on all fours and shaking it around as much as possible, while other ‘dogs’ try to beat you up (or at least wrestle you to the ground and press a button on your controller). Hilarious, slightly awkward and nothing short of amazing. The game certainly goes a long way towards his rhetoric of embracing the flaws in new technology rather than fighting against them.

(Image courtesy of Joystiq.com)

Watch the video here.

Today is the Social and Online Games Summit – so I’ll try to post something vaguely more sensible. It will probably have something to do with leveraging the synergies of low-hanging fruit on Facebook and very little in the way of booty shaking. Which is sad.

P&G hijack their own advertising (smell is power)

Two very different worlds of advertising collide in this new campaign by W+K. It is a very smart and (perhaps, more importantly) funny move.

The only question is, can you really go back to the tried and tested formula for the other brands now… Either way, we like.

 

3D projection mapping combined with a multiplayer game

Really great to see these technologies being combined together, the result is quite beautiful. Nice work from B-Reel London.

The window of the future

CES in Las Vegas is on and like every year I am jealous of everybody who can go to it.

But nevertheless I still get to see all the cool new gadgets and while I have seen prototypes of this before, but this seems to be ready to be installed in my house.

The Samsung Smart Window – a transparent display that is touch enabled and a one sided pane which means people on the outside can’t see what you are seeing.

here are some videos of it in action:

 

 

I love the blinds, also word on the street is that mass production is starting in the next few month, but no word on price yet.

@maniac13

Control Windows 8 by looking at it

I am very excited about the forthcoming Windows 8 and I have been playing around with it since the Developer Preview was released.

We have a big touchscreen in the office here so it is perfect for the Metro UI, but I have to say that the mouse interaction on a laptop without a touchscreen is very average.

Along came Tobii and at first you think it is just another gimmick, but everybody on the net who has actually tried it is blown away by it.

Tobii comes with an eye control device, a rectangular glass obilisk that is attached to the hinge of the laptop. It requires a personal calibration and off you go. It also controls all the swipe gestures available in Windows 8.

But enough said, check it out in the video.

here is another video of it in action

can’t wait to try it out

@maniac13

Another step closer to the HoloDeck

We have seen some cool stuff in the past that could bring us closer to the Star Trek HoloDeck, e.g. the HoloDesk

And now Microsoft Research has pushed a little further and gives us a 3D hologram that is floating in mid air at 15 frames per second and is viewable from 192 different points at a time.

reminds me of Star Wars

Of course Kinect is involved here and the depth sensor makes it possible to interact with the hologram – you can basically touch it.

It is still a long way off from 3D hologram telephony or a full size HoloDeck, but for now this is pretty cool.

check out the video:

@maniac13

Nokia & DJ/Producer deadmau5 lights up London with awesome 4D projection

As a massive fan of the DJ deadmau5 and an ex-Londoner this footage of the recent Nokia product launch was always going to excite me.

That said you certainly don’t have to be a supporter of either to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of this video. Well executed and totally awe inspiring. Nokia successfully bring together the world’s most advanced 4D technology with great music to create an amazing free light show at Millbank Tower in London.

What happened?

“Each of the 120 metre high building’s 800 windows were covered with vinyl as 16 powerful projectors, stationed 300 metres away on the other side of the river, beamed 3D images onto the structure. Huge butterflies flew across the London skyline and the tower was twisted, pulsated and even fell down. Billed as the “future of live events” the spectacular show was accompanied by music from super producer deadmau5, who created exclusive remixes for the performance — adding the 4th dimension.”

Prepare yourself this is a light show like never before!

@lottienorman

Control real life football players with your smartphone

Not sure if this a PR effort to promote the Sony Xperia play or the new album of Kasabian, but nevertheless it is a pretty awesome execution and a lot of effort would have gone into it.

2 “users” control real life football players by selecting commands on their Sony handsets that are then send to the players who are wearing ear pieces.

I like how the headband lights up when a player gets selected!

It seems a bit lagging at times, but it is a pretty impressive attempt

Check out the video:

@maniac13

Amnesia Connect wins Silver ADMA award

Amnesia was awarded a silver last week at the ADMA awards for Amnesia Connect in the Apps and New Development category.

 

The finalists are below and well done to TBWA for Gold on Pedigree in the same category.

Big effort from Iain, Heiko, Stephan and Dan for the work.

If you have not seen connect before you may well of been hiding under a rock so here it is in action.

Great result and hopefully next year we win gold.

@maniac13

Never forget your keys ever again

Amnesia is always happy to support local talent and we are proud to show you a concept from one of our Interns, David Montero

David has been helping us with one of our Kinect internal projects while he was working hard on his own university project called dOh

Ever had a doh! moment?, that moment when the door slams behind you and you slap your forehead realising you left the house without taking the keys with you?

dOh will help you remember your keys, wallet, phone or anything else you could possibly forget.

All you have to do is “tag” your items and when you try to leave your apartment your doorknob will tell you, by flashing a coloured light at you, that you forgot a tagged item.

A really nice idea and I am sure it will help people in the future not to forget their things anymore. It could potentially even tell you that you lost your phone when you come back to your home

@maniac13

Nokias bendable future phone

We have seen bendable displays in the past from Samsung, LG and Toshiba, but none of them have really put it into a functional prototype.

Now Nokia had their Nokia World in London and Tapani Jokinen, Head of Design at Nokia showed off their bendable phone and how it would react when you bend it different ways.

The user will control this flexible Nokia Kinetic phone by bending, twisting and even squeezing it. Different bends will result in different functions on the phone and he had a good point when he said that it makes it much easier to use in the cold winters in Finland when you are wearing gloves.

Check out the video:

Pretty cool!

@maniac13

Best FPS Gaming setup in the world

cLast week it went around all the blogs and I don’t know how many times I watched the video below. If I had a cool $650000 dollars laying around I would buy one myself.

 

here is the teaser we saw last week

 

And then the gadget show aired a few days ago in the UK, but unfortunately if you are not in the UK you can’t use their streaming and catch-up services. Luckily they uploaded it to Youtube so if you have a cool 17 1/2 min to spare check out how the best FPS simulator was build

 

Did I say I want one?

@maniac13

The 360 Ball Camera

Love this idea. Throw the ball in the air and it takes a 360 shot when it reaches the highest point. Wouldn’t it be great to see this technology inside a football as a live stream during the game.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/film-grenade.html

360 Ball Camera

Title Scream

Simple and cool idea, a collection of 8 and 16-bit video game title graphics.

Title Scream

@danKrause

Disney’s Appmates – the future of iPad gaming

If you have kids and a tablet you know that your kids love them and you hardly get any time with it yourself.

Disney is going to release their Appmates toys next month and then you won’t get your tablet back at all from your kids.

So what is Appmates? It seems to be a new iPad interface which lets the user (or small and big Kids) control a Cars-themed iPad games using the toys above.

The toy cars have special conductive pads that are recognized by the iPad and interpreted by the app.

As you drive around the virtual environment of Radiator Springs, you’ll hear the character’s voice react to each bump or jostle. Mirrors inside the toy car will reflect light from the iPad through the toy’s headlights, and Mater’s siren as well.

Check out the video after the break

We like the UNIQLO Voices Website

Video content tends to play a standard role in most websites. The functionality is seldom messed with : Users click a play button to start (or get annoyed it played without your permission) and play only one video at a time. Normally video sits in a fixed position and will be of a set size. Indeed, screwing around with ‘standard video UI design’ can be a dangerous game but when it’s done right, it’s easy to start believing that video should be some much more in so many sites. Check out the Uniqlo website… it’s cool, fun, breaks some boring old rules and is our site of the day.

http://www.uniqlo.com/nyc/voices/

 

HT to @lyndonjhale

The biggest projected capacitive display in the world

and I want one.

I finally had the time to read about this “little” screen at SIGGRAPH, the article has been open in my browser for about 6 days.

And it was well worth the wait.

A projected capacitive display is nothing new, multiple smartphones, including the iPhone has one, but having an 82 inch one is something very special.

check out the video below and dream about having one of these puppies in your living room some day.

http://www.viddler.com/embed/33ac8f58/?f=1&offset=0&autoplay=0&disablebranding=0

Right now this kind of screen is still really expensive ($120 000) and even the  CEO said that consumers will see this in the market as soon as it is more affordable.

I am saving my pennies now.

@maniac13

Real Life Outrun

We all remember the original 8bit Outrun Game from 1986. I remember playing it until my fingers were bleeding.

So what would it be like if you could have this in real life? That is what the people at the University of California Irvine ask themselves and they created a system that, with the help of cameras and some customized software, looks in front of the vehicle and reproduces a map of what lies ahead of you onto the screen in 8bit rendering just like Outrun.

All you have to do now is follow the route. Simply awesome.

check out the video

@maniac13

Viral Marketing puts girl in an iPad helmet

Promoting the launch of Cosmo For Guys, Viral marketing company Thinkmodo thought it would be a great idea to put a girls head in a 4 iPad contraption and turn heads. Some people will call it awesome, some will call it creepy, I am just wondering how she is seeing where she is going and if that guy touching her “face” is really annoying her.

Cosmo for Guys is a new digital magazine that is exclusive to the iPad.

check out the viral in actions

iPad girl turns heads

@maniac13